SECOND-VIRGIL AND THE DEVIL

I

Some ten or fifteen years before the close of the twelfth century there appeared in the most notable treatise of the time a paragraph which presented the Roman poet Virgil not only in the guise of a mechanical inventor, but also in a guise which to later ages seemed that of a magician. The occasion which Alexander Neckam, the foster brother of Richard I. of England, in his work upon the nature of things, seized as affording a pretext for relating a series of improbable anecdotes was an argument in behalf of schools and education. In addition to other examples of men who had been useful to the world, because of their studies, he cited that of Virgil. It was learning which enabled Virgil to relieve the city of Naples from a pest of leeches which infested the water, and this he did by placing a golden leech in one of the wells. The virtue of this image was shown many years afterward; for when it was taken out with the settlings of the well, an infinite army of leeches again plagued the city. In order to aid the dealers in fresh meat, who found it impossible to keep their wares untainted any length of time, Virgil constructed shambles, using the virtues of some unknown herbs by which flesh could be kept clean and wholesome, even for a period of

five hundred years. Learning it was that enabled this renowned poet to surround his garden with an immovable atmosphere, and to construct a bridge of air, by the use of which he was carried to any place he wished. At Rome, likewise, he built a noble palace in which every country known was represented by a wooden image, holding in its hand a bell. Whenever the people of any country ventured to plot treason against the majesty of the Roman Empire, the image of the traitorous nation began at once to ring its bell. Then a knight of bronze, seated on a horse of bronze at the summit of the palace, brandished his spear and pointed in the direction of the region where rebellion had broken out. The poet once, when asked how long this noble edifice would be preserved by the gods, replied: "It will stand until a virgin shall bear a son." Those who heard him applauded his words, and replied: "Then it will stand forever." But at the nativity of the Saviour, it is said, the building suddenly fell into a heap of ruins. In these few lines Neckam put not only the outline of the achievements attributed to the art of Virgil, but indicated his reputation as a prophet who foresaw the coming of Christ. These were the important features in the development of the legend from first to last. A story respecting a bronze fly, told by John of Salisbury in his Polycraticus shows that a portion of what Neckam related might have been known early in the latter half of the twelfth century. Neckam's manner of presenting the subject indicates that he presumed on the previous knowledge of his readers. The history of the literature relating to the subject of Virgilian magic from this point is not difficult to trace. Near the time of Neckam, Helinand, a Flemish trouvere, turned monk, gathered up the magical tales

which he had heard or invented concerning Virgil, and included them, with many other tales of the like character, in a pretended chronicle of the world. Some years later Gervase of Tilbury, a man who traveled much, but who was of narrow and credulous mind, devoid of a regard for facts, and incapable of accurately testing his own experiences, included some variations of the Virgilian tales in a work which he wrote to amuse the leisure of the Emperor Otto IV. What Neckam had vaguely spoken of under the general phrase of learning, Gervase described as mathematic art. Conrad of Querfurt, a German writer near the time of Gervase, used the words magic arts to describe Virgil's supposed power.

In the meanwhile a work, the indirect result of the conquest of Sicily by the Normans, had appeared about the beginning of the thirteenth century, which was apparently widely read. The romance of Dolopathos, while it was in outline only a variation of the tale of the King and his Seven Counselors, was widely different from that oriental fiction in its details, and particularly in the fact that Virgil as a sage, as an astronomer and as a necromancer was made the central figure in the narrative, which was one of great length and of much descriptive power. The outward semblance of Virgil, the necromancer, was so graphically portrayed in this work that subsequent romancers copied the picture without change. When the German verse makers, imitating models which they found in the French, took up the Virgilian legends, they interpreted the doubtful phrases about astronomy, and learning, and the seven arts to mean that Virgil had come by his ехсерtional skill as a mechanic, a sculptor and an architect through collusion with demons.

II

But in Neckam and in the Dolopathos, with all the fantastic additions to his fame, Virgil still retained his reputation as a poet. The phrase of Neckam, vates gloriosus, is enough of itself to disprove the notion once popular in respect to these legends -namely, that they originated in the superstitious veneration. felt for one of the numerous mediaval Virgils with whom the author of the Eneid has been confounded. True, it is not easy for a modern reader to conceive how such incredible tales could have been associated with the name of Virgil. We do not know many facts concerning him, but these furnish the outline of the studious, contemplative life which he must have led in the composition of his poems. The biography of a recluse rarely furnishes more even to the most persistent curiosity. To know that the poet was the son of a humble, but well-to-do provincial; that he was liberally educated; that he inherited a small farm near Mantua; that he, along with his countrymen in Transpadane Gaul, suffered severely from the confiscations which followed the battle of Philippi; that he was the cherished friend of Horace and Maecenas; that he was enriched by Octavian's kindness; was even in his lifetime accounted the greatest poet of the Roman world; that he lived in studious retirement at Rome, and especially at Naples; traveled late in life to Athens, died from a sunstroke at Brundisium on his return to Italy, and was buried near Naples; that he was tall in person and dark in appearance, melancholy, yet kindly in his disposition, pure in morals and modest even to rusticity in his demeanor-to know these things is, perhaps, to know all that was important in the poet's history. The witticism attributed to Octavian, that when

seated between his two friends, Maro and Horace, he was between sighs and tears, lets us into a knowledge of the chronic asthmatic complaint to which Virgil was subject. The poems of Horace evince the kindness and lovableness of his friend. If there is a lack of important details in the biography it is due to a want of incident in Virgil's career, and to what may be called a lack of variety and color in his outward seeming. He is rarely represented to us by his early biographer except in company with his books. with his books. His own poems he read, we are informed, with exquisite modulation and emphasis. Sometimes, in the enthusiasm of such a reading, he thought of felicitous phrases to complete verses which he had found impossible to finish in his closet. Tradition points out two lines as having been perfected in this manner. He had written "Miscnum Æolidem," and in pronouncing these two words, it suddenly occurred to him to add "Quo non præstantior alter;" and so with the other verse:

Aere ciere viros-Martemque accendere cantu.

The contrast between his character and that of Horace was as lively as their friendship. Both were scholars; but the one was essentially a man of the world, the other a man of books. Horace was a man whom everybody could approach, and whom all were delighted to know. His wit charmed every circle. He was gifted with that genial sympathy which unlocks every heart. The passions of the high-born youth, the humors of the street, the scurrility of the vaporing rustics on the road to Brundisium were all alike interesting to him. But Virgil was such an one as only his most intimate friends could approach. To the people of the cities which he frequented, his tall figure and shambling gait were better known than he could have wished; for even the respectful plaudits of the multitude